Happy After-Mother’s Day to all of Floral

May 28, 2024

Last month I asked about your sustainability efforts and we’ve seen some great news coming from the industry already.

For example, this notice below was announced in our trade media:

“Paardekooper, market leader in flower packaging, proudly announces a new collaboration project with Kivo, a leading producer of flexible packaging. This project marks an important step in Paardekooper's ongoing commitment to providing sustainable solutions to its customers.  The facility will be in Kosovo in Southeastern Europe, so much closer to where it is needed, thus reducing their ecological impact and encourages their sustainability initiatives while also creating jobs for the Kosovo community.”

We would love to hear your sustainability efforts so we can let others know what you are doing.  This messaging needs to reach our consumers as well, so starting with your customers is a great place to start making sure that story is heard!

If you’re looking for other ways to kick off your sustainability efforts, consider:

The Sustainability Task Force is going to have a Webinar on the different ways you can specifically help in the Plant and Flower Industries.  This will take place July 23rd at 1pm EST so watch information to sign up for it.   
Sustainabloom is a great source for large and small projects for all of us.  They have the research behind the work and will need help with funding to keep this marvelous project going to help us all in the journey to sustainability.

For a while now, sustainability has been a “good to have” story for consumers and customers, but is quickly becoming a “cost of entry” in a lot of regions. In Europe, which traditionally leads in sustainability trends is seeing more and more stricter regulations and requirements. For example, some companies are now required to show their plan to reduce carbon footprint before they can do business in the region. Getting started – if you haven’t already – will put you in the best decisions if and when those regulations come closer to home.

Member Benefits

Chrysal Americas is providing us with a new Commodity Pricing update that may help you and your discussions about cost increases and where they stem from, or if they are indeed going down in cost.  Use this update each month to stay in tune with what is happening in other commodities that might inadvertently affect your business. Here is this month’s Commodities Pricing Update.

Other data that is useful to you as a member includes the Circana Supermarket Floral Sales Data. Each month this report comes out for IFPA members only, with important and dynamic data to track the Floral Department sales and trends. To access, you must be an IFPA member, but you can click on the “IFPA Members: Get Started!” button to log in and access the full reports. If you don’t yet have an IFPA account, simply create one following the prompts. Let us know if you have any questions.

The IFPA Task Force for POS Data wants to help you to get deeper into data by identifying the sales to the category and segment level.  Check out this resource on how to do this correctly, then get it to your Circana or Nielsen representative.  Doing this at the retailer level, you will have the capability to dig into which Consumer Bunch or Indoor Blooming Plants are capturing more sales across the country.  Utilize suppliers to help gather data and send it to where you tell them after you have given them the category and segment it goes into. 

 Demand Creation

ALSO, The Floral Demand Creation Task Force wants to remind you that there are plenty of events going on in July, August and September.  In particular, Girlfriends Day is August 1st  and many other national holidays can be talked up at your stores or on social media.  There are single bucket boxes for these summer promos if you get with PCA. 

IFPA would love to get total sales from anyone and everyone that took part at retail.  Just the dollar amount and your company name is anonymous so we can report out each year how we are improving sales and getting more involved year after year. Please get involved and make someone’s day better everyday with Flowers and Plants.  We all talk about getting more sales and THIS is your way to get involved! 

Here’s a great resource if you’re looking for those lesser known national days!

Where you can get involved

We have a Floral Task Force on Logistics Collaboration for Plants.  This also helps sustainability, efficiency AND will save you money.  This task force is working on a pilot with companies in BC area of Canada and down the coast of California on ways to Consolidate trucks and Deconsolidate elsewhere to have more frequent fresh trucks of Plants to stores.  The pilot is for plants that can tolerate 55 degrees.  The truck will again be Consolidating in Southern California and Deconsolidating in Seattle and/or BC.

What can you do to help?   Be a part of this process if you are a plant company or a Retailer. Let me know at dzoellick@freshproduce.com and I will get your information to the team working on this pilot. 

If you are a retailer, know that this is a way to get fresher plants more often AND save money.   Be part of this sustainable solution. 

Join us in Miami: Make no mistake about it: We are living in unprecedented times. From digital transformation to shifting consumption patterns and fluctuating global instability, it is proving harder and harder to win when it feels like the goalpost is always moving further and further away.

What it takes to win now and into the future is being redefined, and IFPA will be sharing with you all the insights that will help you unlock success for your business.  IFPA worked with Kantar to uncover opportunities to increase sales in these stressful times – from finding new customers, to leveraging sustainability and wellness movements, to using our digital channels and resources differently – IFPA is here to help you map your future.  Join me at The Floral Conference – Miami where we will make our research a reality with interactive sessions that drive your business forward.

Happy After-Mother’s Day to all of Floral

Additional Press